Madam, - As Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad prepares to address the UN General Assembly, it is time that Ireland recognised that his regime is not a legitimate example of a different culture, but a savage, repressive tyranny. Ireland, and the whole EU, should show its total opposition to the Iranian regime's human rights abuses, oppression of religious and ethnic minorities, persecution of homosexuals, execution of minors and stoning of women.
Ahmadinejad's Iran is not only one of the world's major human rights abusers but also an obstacle to lasting global peace and security. Ahmadinejad's continual bellicose language, denial of the Holocaust, repeated calls for the destruction of the UN-mandated state of Israel, rejection of the current peace process and active support of terrorist groups such as Hizb-Allah, Islamic Jihad and Hamas are feeding further violence and increasing instability in an already volatile Middle East.
The Iranian regime's religious fanaticism and glorification of global Jihad, combined with its ongoing development of nuclear capabilities (that could soon produce military warheads), along with its existing missile arsenal, should send alarm bells ringing globally. The International Atomic Energy Agency's recently published report points to an oil-rich Iran increasingly blocking legitimate international scrutiny of its nuclear intentions - and Iran has not proved that its desire to go nuclear is solely for peaceful civilian purposes. It has also ignored the UN Security Council's demand for a freeze of its nuclear programme.
As they have done in the past, the Irish Government, trade unions, churches, NGOs and people who are sensitive to global moral and humanitarian issues must show their objection to Ahmadinejad's regime, to its abuse of human rights, its continued attempts to destabilise the region, and its development of nuclear weapons. - Yours, etc,
TOM CAREW,
Irish Friends of Israel,
Ranelagh, Dublin 6.